Archives

Canada’s back? More like Canada’s a pariah.

Posted by Scott Tribe on November 23, 2007, at 3:50 pm |

You all remember that slogan that Harper uttered about Canada being “back” in the world, when a lot of us wondered where Canada had ever gone. Maybe Harper means Canada is back to being noticed, and if he means it in that sense, then he’s done quite a sterling job at it at the Commonwealth Summit as being noticed as one of the the lone holdout nations to a resolution calling for international climate-change targets.

Apparently Harper won’t support this resolution unless it calls for binding targets on all nations – which is kind of interesting, since Canada is one of those nations that under Harper publicly opposes binding climate-change targets, whether other nations support it or not, so to call this statement 2-faced is being polite, to say the least, and the British are doing their diplomatic best to be publicly polite about it as well:

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband avoided pointing the finger at Canada directly. “I’m too much of a politician and a diplomat to be drawn into comments – positive or negative,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview. And again without mentioning Canada, he described some countries’ you-first attitude that is holding up progress at climate talks: “(It’s), ‘I will if you will,’ on the one hand. And, ‘you first,’ on the other.”

In diplomatic terms, Canada is seen as the foot-dragger on this. In a couple of days, Canada will probably indeed be the lone Commonwealth nation to oppose such a deal, as the Australian government under John Howard – another foot-dragger on climate change – is about to be turfed out, with climate change being a major factor in his defeat.

Oh well, at least Harper still has his American Idol and puppet-master in Dubya Bush supporting his position, and in Harper’s eyes, that’s probably the only country that matters.

UPDATE: Steve reminds me in his blogpost that “leading the world” is also the new catchphrase our government is trying to use to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Again, if it’s meant to mean, “leading the world” in foot-dragging, it’s accurate almost to a tee.

UPDATE 2: Great post by Quito, throwing Peter Van Loan’s “small man in Confederation” comment at Dalton McGuinty right back in Harper’s face as per being the “small man in the Commonwealth” and not supporting the big picture.

2 comments to Canada’s back? More like Canada’s a pariah.

It’s incredible, eh? The audacity of this guy is too much. "well, we can’t get involved unless there’s real binding targets and everyone is involved, as well. Oh and by the way, we don’t agree to binding targets and won’t get involved anyway". Leadership, both internationally and at home, have been tossed aside. We’re getting further behindin meeting any targets, arbitrary ones or not. I just had a huge discussion with ALW about acting now versus later. I still think it’s better to act now and then use the pressure of the collective to push or encourage others into committing afterwards. Even with our small numbers (the confederation) we can make some difference for the time being.